The Survivor’s Club

Book Reviewed:The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life

Author: Ben Sherwood

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, New York

Copyright Date: 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-58024-3

Type: Softcover

Reviewed by: Yackman

Yackman’s Rating: 8 out of 10

My Review: This is a good book. It is a study of survivors and the skills it takes to survive. The author, Ben Sherwood, looks at survival events and those people in them who live and die in an attempt to isolate the characteristics that help individuals survive. He discovers that while chance always plays a roll in survival, and training can enhance a person’s likelihood of living, no single set of skills or personal characteristics will determine the outcome.

Part I is entitled, “What It Takes to Survive”. These are some of the chapter subheadings in Part I:

Why So Many People Die When They Shouldn’t

How Much of Life (and Death) Do You Really Control?

Prayer Miracles and the Power of Faith

Why Good Things Always Happen to the Same People

How Fear Can Save Your Life

Who Bounces Back and Who Doesn’t

You can see that these topics are all over the map, yet Sherwood manages to weave them into a coherent whole.

In Part II (Are You a Survivor?), the author pulls all the threads of the book together, essentially saying that all of us possess some of the skills needed to survive in a crisis situation. He then takes the reader through a psychometric designed to gauge his/her own survival strengths.

According to Sherwood there are five main survivor types.

The Connector

The Realist

The Thinker

The Fighter

The Believer

These characteristics are thoroughly defined and discussed, with stories of actual survivors and survival situations given to illustrate the characteristic.

In addition, there are some twelve survival tools identified and defined.

Adaptability

Resilience

Faith

Hope

Purpose

Tenacity

Love

Empathy

Intelligence

Ingenuity

Flow

Instinct

The on-line psychometric (the Survivor Profiler) purports to identify your survivor type and top three survival tools with a high level of accuracy.

To access the profiler and determine your survivor type and top three survivor tools, go to www.survivorprofiler.org/getcode to register with an email address and password. You will be sent a unique access code and will be sent to www.survivorprofiler.org to complete your profile. However, your results will mean so much more if you buy and read The Survivors Club. You can buy this book below.